I loved the movie version of The Kite Runner. I never read the book, but I'm all about the misery in books.
Literary Buffistas 3: Don't Parse the Blurb, Dear.
There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."
From that book I learned the valuable lesson that it really is okay to stop reading and not finish a book.
I'm still learning that lesson. I so wish I had just given it up instead of this stupid feeling angry at a book. I mean, that's ridiculous. It's a book, why was I angry at it? Even worse, I am still angry at it. I need to learn to stop reading.
ok, what's the most unfortunate book rec you ever got?
Kite Runner
Absolutely.
My aunt gave me The Celestine Prophecy.
There is one line in Kite Runner that I adore. I think it sums up the immigrant experience as many of my students feel it. Chapter 11, I think: "Baba loved the idea of America. It was living in America that gave him an ulcer."
I feel that way about so much in my life. I love the idea of it, but the reality of it gives me pains.
ok, what's the most unfortunate book rec you ever got?
Wind Up Bird Chronicles. Maybe I just missed the point of it but man, I did not enjoy it.
Do you ever preorder books on Amazon, then feel surprised when they show up?
All the time. Also e-books, though having the actual package is more bewildering.
So I finished reading Sebastian Faulks' Charlotte Gray last night.
Man, is that impressive. It's both grueling and hopeful, which is an odd combination. A young woman in London in 1941 falls in love with an RAF pilot, and also gets recruited to the Special Operations Executive. When he goes missing in France, she uses a courier drop she gets sent on to go looking for him.
The writing is excellent, the characterizations complicated and creative, the evils of fascism both banal and horrifying. Really well done, and quite heartbreaking.
Do you ever preorder books on Amazon, then feel surprised when they show up?
Beau does this all the time and I tease him relentlessly for it. Given what y'all have expressed, maybe I need to be easier on him.